


Breathe

by wings128



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Action/Adventure, Community: satedan_grabass, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-27
Updated: 2013-04-27
Packaged: 2017-12-09 15:23:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/775755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wings128/pseuds/wings128
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>…..all he could see was the turbulent churning creamy foam and roiling seething jade greenness of a formidable enemy that thirsted for his death, just as surely as Wraith hungered for his life…..</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breathe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jendavis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jendavis/gifts).



> [](http://s1343.photobucket.com/user/Wings128/media/images%20I%20love/r10wings128deepthroatwinner_zps7122a7b8.png.html)   
> 
> 
> My heartfelt thanks to auscaz for her loyal and enthusiastic “remember I don’t read slash but send me more” and to rhia_starsong for her excellent as always preview of the porn beta-ing.

They’d been running for what seemed like forever; and a bad job they were making of it too. Ronon ran beside him thrusting overhanging ferns out of his way and loping around or over the minefield of scraggly tree roots, ankle-breaking potholes and moss covered rocks that cluttered the poor excuse for a trail. John could hear McKay’s ragged breathing over their open comm line and wondered how far out from the Jumper the other two were.

“We are two minutes out Colonel,” Teyla’s calm voice held the barest hint of exertion as it echoed off his inner ear before he’d finished the thought.

“Understood,” he grunted in reply as another near-lethal blast of electric blue plasma lit up the surrounding lush greenness, leaving the hairs on his arms standing on end and a charcoal taste in the back of his throat.

He had leaped over yet another obstacle, exactly as another round struck the tree to his right, stumbled as the blue contact arc bleached his vision and felt Ronon’s long fingers bite into his arm.

“Y’okay?”

“Can’t see,” he gasped on a panicked breath and felt the grip on his bicep strengthen.

“I’ve got you.”

There was an overwhelming sense of reassurance and safety underlining the simple words that gave John a warm swirly feeling deep in his gut. Ronon had tugged him into his side, wrapped his strong muscular arm around John’s back and grasped a firm hold of the silver riveted belt, before urging them into motion as smoothly as if they were going for one of their morning runs. 

Ronon tried to ignore the frantic panic racing in his heart and focused only on getting Sheppard to the Jumper then Atlantis, where Beckett could fix him; because a blind Sheppard wouldn’t be his CO, just the same as a blind Sheppard wouldn’t stay in the city of the Ancestors where he belonged. He’d be sent back to Earth. 

Other than it being Sheppard’s home world, Ronon hadn’t given Earth much thought; but now the name of a planet three million light years away repeated on a loop in the back of his mind, like a Satedan death chant, as he ran. Earth. Earth. Earth. It was the name of Sheppard’s prison and the only planet in two galaxies where Ronon would be forced to abandon his commander; a man who’d offered him hope when he had had none. 

The knowledge sliced sharp and cruel with every shallow breath, like the blade of an Athosian hunting knife viciously twisted at the moment of extraction. He wouldn’t leave Sheppard, even if it was in the hands of his own people. Sheppard was his and they belonged together. If all he ever got was warriors-fighting-the-good-fight, team-members-training-together or just-buddies-hanging-out, then Ronon would make that enough; because being separated from Sheppard, from John, wasn’t something Ronon could ever accept.

The man next to him stumbled yet again and Ronon caught the action by hauling on the handful of belt before Sheppard could cause himself further injury. He could feel the other man’s fear sliding off him in waves; everything Sheppard held dear relied on him being able to see.

“I’ve got you,” Ronon murmured under his breath, mostly to himself but he knew that Sheppard had heard him because the Colonel stood straighter, leaned closer and actually timed his blind steps to the motion of Ronon’s thigh. 

The effort it took to remain upright as he crashed the two of them through thick bush, shoving the ferns back so they wouldn’t slap either of them in the face, quickly ate away at his reserves. Sheppard did his best to carry his own weight but since he couldn’t see the obstacles in their path Ronon had to lift him over each and every one and with the need to focus on the maybe-fading sounds of their pursuers, Ronon hadn’t registered the distinct increase of moisture in the air. 

They broke cover a moment later and found themselves standing on a narrow sickle of pink-grey sand that felt ridiculously soft and unsettling under their feet after the rocky hardness of the trail. The change in lighting from a solid green to the comparatively-bright grey of open overcast sky was startling, but it wasn’t what had brought Ronon to a standstill. 

His tall frame was a perfect statue of golden marble. Each individual joint, strand of muscle and fibre of tendon was locked tight and rigid. He’d clamped his jaw and compressed his lips to combat the nausea that rose with a sickening stench of panic-soaked fear, and the screaming torment of long dormant memories that slithered with cool reptilian stealth deep into his gut.

He supposed it was something he should’ve told Sheppard in the beginning. It wasn’t only something that could put the team in danger; it was something that made him weak and Ronon despised weakness. He could understand it in others but he would never accept it in himself and as Ronon stood frozen at the edge of the calm yet swiftly moving river, with his arm still around his team leader’s waist, all he could see was the turbulent churning creamy foam and roiling seething jade greenness of a formidable enemy that thirsted for his death, just as surely as Wraith hungered for his life. 

∞

John had sensed the change in their surroundings in the same instant that Ronon had stopped dead. He’d caught himself from falling by grabbing a fistful of tan leather and tried to take advantage of their pause to breathe deep, but the muscular arm around his waist might well have been a steel cable for all the slack it yielded. Ronon hadn’t responded to his whispered query and seemed to be made of stone. 

Instead of a blue white nothingness he now had this weird dancing honeycomb of hexagons, their numbers decreasing - he hoped - as they kaleidoscoped the green and made him think he’d been smoking some out-of-it alien weed. With a lift of his head the colour changed to a mass of white and John swallowed down the serious freakout that made his heart hammer against his ribs. At least the green had meant a step towards sight, but white…

John tried to throw his senses outward, tried to gather any useful Intel but his ears just echoed with the loud buzz of sudden silence. He could hear something; something out beyond the reaches of his overtaxed senses and as he listened, it washed over him, a harsh relentlessly rolling roar that slowly and insistently filled him with an icy dread.

“River?” he asked past the hard lump in his throat.

“Yeah,” Ronon acknowledged in a harsh and croaked voice that John had never heard him use before.

It was a tone that scared the crap out of John. They were out in the open with pissed off locals toting electro-plasma energy bows fast approaching on their six and a raging river at their twelve o’clock; Ronon seemed completely incapable of moving, much less running and unless his sight miraculously returned in the next minute and a half John had to rely on Ronon to get them out of this one.

“Ronon! Snap out of it!” He yelled as he shook and yanked on the fistful of leather he hadn’t realised he still gripped. “Move!”

Nothing happened at first; Ronon acted like a stun victim, waking slowly and testing his body with clutch and release movements. John felt the flex of Ronon’s forearm and fingers against his back and hip. That was something.

“Come on, buddy!” John encouraged in a voice strained with suppressed panic.

“Sheppard, this is McKay, are you taking the scenic route?”

“McKay, we’ve hit a road block, we need a ride,” John muttered as battle cries echoed around them, distorting their point of origin. “Bring us up on the HUD.”

“I can’t land by a river!”

“McKay!”

Despite John’s best efforts Ronon still refused to move even an inch.

“I can’t fly between those cliffs, I’m not you!”

John restrained himself from snarking back as he added cliffs to the mental picture he was building of their surroundings.

“Is there anywhere you can land?”

“There is a large clearing a short distance east of your position,” Teyla answered after a brief silence that had seemed an eternity to John.

“East?” he repeated as a sinking feeling filled him.

“Yes, Colonel, we will reach the co-ordinates in …” Teyla paused “…five minutes.”

“Understood, Sheppard out.” He lifted his head to where he thought Ronon’s face should be and was rewarded with a dark outline against the white. “Ronon, you need to get us outta here!”

John flinched against Ronon’s side and instinctively ducked his head into the warm solid chest as an electrical charge yielded a crack like a lightning strike in the superheated moisture-laden air. They had fired before they’d cleared the bush, but it was enough of a jolt to get Ronon moving again. The grip on his belt tightened and he pressed his thigh into Ronon’s so he could feel when he had to move his left leg. As they ran forward John figured he’d find out what was up with Ronon later, because right now he had bigger fish to fry; like blindly crossing a fast flowing river without drowning or being electrocuted.

∞

‘If they were doing this then they were doing it fucking fast!’ Ronon thought as he plunged them in; the water spraying up and out like crystal beaded fans with each running boot step.

The current hit them like a kick to the back of the knees; Sheppard staggered against him and Ronon felt the arm around his waist tighten as long fingers bit painfully into his left flank.

“Fuck, it’s cold!” Sheppard’s whispered curse was laced with the fear of a man who was used to being in control and suddenly found himself completely helpless.

Ronon answered the silent plea for reassurance by tightening his sweaty grip on Sheppard’s belt and hauling the Colonel closer into his length. His CO’s panic made it easier for Ronon to control his own, so with his heart fit to burst in his chest, he kept his eyes forward and drove them towards the elusively distant shore.

“Keep moving!” He growled to muffle the ghostly echo of raucous taunting laughter that filled his head as icy fire sucked, gurgled and swirled around his hips like it was noisily circling a drain.

His breathing was rushed and harsh, and Sheppard held fast like Ronon was everything. His coat pulled against his shoulders and his legs held no feeling beyond a weight that, with every sluggish inch forward, dragged at his waning strength. He was so tired and the cold was seeping into his bones with such intensity it was beginning to feel seductively warm. It would be so easy to stop fighting…just let everything wash away…everything…humiliation… fear…pain…let…it…all…….wash……………….away…………………… 

“Sheppard, we’re at the co-ordinates, where are you?!”

Ronon had never been more pleased to hear McKay’s grating voice scratching in his ear. ‘Had it only been five minutes? It felt like two lifetimes.’ He felt the subliminal tremor that ran through Sheppard’s body. ‘They had to get out now!’

“Five minutes out!” he growled in a tone he hoped would kill further comment.

“Oh, I see, and what are Teyla and I supposed to do while you two enjoy the scenery?”

“We’re up to our necks in freezing-ass water, Rodney! Give us a minute here!” Sheppard’s biting retort lost most of its heat in the stuttering delivery but Ronon knew McKay had got the message, because his only reply was a shocked right before the comm line went quiet again. 

They were waist-deep and about two thirds across when Ronon stumbled in the loose shale and smooth pebbles of the riverbed, lurched to his left and was swallowed whole. The last thing he heard as he was sucked beneath the river’s triumphant gloating surface and icicles stabbed at his face was more of that fucking laughter as it drowned out the sound of his name, locked protectively in the shocked caress of Sheppard’s panic-soaked shout. 

∞

One second they were making their slow-ass way across the river the next he was fighting the vicious hold Ronon had on his hip, struggling to gasp a last breath of air before he was dragged under. John hadn’t been able to see anything for the last half hour or so but now he couldn’t hear anything either and the sheer terror latent in the struggles of the man who had hold of him was adhering itself to John like wet cling wrap. His fingers clawed at the frozen hand on his hip in an effort to break free, his lungs burned with the need to breathe and black spots dotted his vision as his feet scrabbled for purchase on the shifting, sliding ground. He forced his elbow into Ronon’s ribs but what little strength his cold-weakened muscles retained was absorbed by the invisible force of the rushing current; it was like trying to knock over a statue with a wet feather. The body next to him convulsed as it bottomed out, he felt a groan ripple up Ronon’s torso and just like that the arm pinning him slackened.

He felt amazingly light now that Ronon wasn’t holding him close. The sensation so heartening that he almost opened his mouth to his brain’s overpowering demands for oxygen. Instead he grabbed a fistful of Ronon’s coat and pushed for the surface, his boots slipped deeper; he shoved off again, felt a moment’s resistance from Ronon before rising, with strong kicks, to the lightness above. 

John broke the surface on an explosion of stale air, lifted his fist and discovered, with a bone-numbing horror colder than any river, that all he held was a very heavy, very soaked, but completely empty tan leather coat. It took a second or two for John to realise that he could actually see the coat hanging limp and heavy in his white-knuckled fist; it was like looking through a windshield on a rainy day, but he could see it! 

It took a whole other point-two-of-a-second to remember Ronon was still down there.

“Man down!” John yelled into his probably useless radio, sucked in a deep breath, held it so tight his lungs brushed his ribs and dove head first back under the icy green depths.

‘Damn it, Chewie!’ John’s heart squeezed hard mid-beat as the weight of his tac vest and P90 helped his descent, ‘I’m not gonna lose you!’ 

∞

The murkiness of the gangrene depths meant that Ronon didn’t come fully into being until John was practically on top of him. His dreads were floating out and up from his skull like some sort of freaky seaweed and his eyes darted ceaselessly never focusing while he tugged sluggishly at his left knee. John swam in close but Ronon didn’t look at him, just kept pulling and pulling to free the foot pinned beneath the end of an algae-coated log as more loose gravel buried his ankle. 

It wasn’t how he’d dreamed his first taste of that mouth would be but his heart still thudded wildly in his chest as he kicked against the current and kept their lips sealed. Ronon had figured out what he was trying to do because the full lips beneath his opened and John was met with dizzying heat as he blew half his air into the moist cavern of that desperately open mouth. The contact had calmed Ronon’s frantic movements and instead of continuing to pull on his leg, he’d moulded his large hands to John’s biceps and helped hold them together against the unrelenting drag of the racing current. 

John was pulling back barely a moment after their lips had met; breaking Ronon’s hold on his arms in the same movement that had him reaching for his 9mm, but with the action came the realisation that one shot, even at this range, wouldn’t be effective and there was the likelihood of the reload jamming before he could get off a second shot. It was time neither of them could spare, so John ignored the fire in his lungs and pulled Ronon’s blaster from its holster. Ronon froze all movement except for the roll of his eyes that clearly said I should’ve thought of that. The weapon felt weird in his hand as the muzzle wavered, its perfect balance thrown off by the underwater environment, but they didn’t have the time or the air for John to adjust. He fired, Ronon was free, and they were kicking for the surface. John, with his arms wrapped tightly over Ronon’s chest, couldn’t help the way his heart gave a happy erratic thud when Ronon placed his palm over the back of John’s hand, entwined their fingers and squeezed tight. 

They broke the river’s glassy surface in an explosion of relief and desperate gasps for fresh air as the man in his arms wrestled to free himself from John’s hold.

“Gerroff!” There was no mistaking the panic hidden beneath the growled warning of impending pain if the demand wasn’t met with instant compliance.

“Easy, Ronon!” John coughed as a mass of matted and tangled dreadlocks splatted him in the mouth and Ronon frantically searched for escape. “It’s me!”

John kept repeating his own name over and over against Ronon’s ear like a mantra, hoping it would sink into the other man’s mind and give him something to hold on to. It seemed to be working because, as they bobbed downstream like a paper boat in a storm drain, Ronon had tightened his grip on their still linked fingers, laid his head back and trusted that John would keep him safe. 

∞

He’d lost track of how long or how far they’d travelled while held in the river’s grip; but it finally spat them, like a car exiting a freeway, into a boulder-edged alcove where the water huddled in gentle transparent eddies over smooth bronze sand. John coerced his exhausted frozen joints into motion and dug in a heel, to stop them being sucked around the curve and back into the main body of the river.

“This is our stop,” he murmured, his voice raspy with disuse and tinged with something he adamantly told himself wasn’t regret.

Before John could even figure out how to get his body to obey a simple order Ronon was standing on the shore, hands clutching slightly-bent knees, head bowed and long back convulsing as he took in huge rapid lungfuls of air. John wanted to place his hand on the other man’s shoulder but every line of Ronon’s body forbade it, so he focused his attention on subtly breaking the passionate suction between the drenched fabric of his BDU’s and his traitorously hard dick and coming up with their next move. 

He knew their prolonged radio silence and failure to make the rendezvous had been a red flag to Rodney and Teyla. By now they would’ve cleared the atmosphere and be on approach for the orbiting space gate and through to Atlantis for reinforcements. John sighed a resigned breath; three missions in as many weeks Lorne and the Atlantis marines had been sent to rescue their diplomatically-challenged CO and his team. John’s lips compressed into a thin line at the thought of the barely disguised laughter in his blue-eyed XO’s expression before his mouth tugged into its trademark smirk. Had it been happening to someone else it would’ve been funny as hell. For now though, all he and Ronon had to do was find shelter, stay warm and wait for Lorne to rescue them…again. 

∞

Not even the solid feel of Sheppard’s arms around his chest had been incentive enough to stay in the now warm yet still freezing water once his feet touched bottom. He broke Sheppard’s hold as if it were tissue paper, stumbled and staggered to solid ground and stood gasping and shaking.

Sheppard had moved up beside him and Ronon could no longer breathe. All he could do was stare; his gaze hidden behind the protective curtain of his matted hair followed the shaky movements of Sheppard’s long fingers as they tugged uselessly at his soaked BDU’s before moving to check weapons at thigh, hip and chest. The blatant way the black fabric plastered itself to the sweet curve his CO’s taut ass and across his narrow hips made all the blood in Ronon’s body rush straight to his dick. Apparently Ronon hadn’t been the only one enjoying the jostling of their trip down river because it was impossible not to notice the sharp outline of the other man’s impressively hard cock. He swallowed hard through the sudden dryness in his throat and watched as Sheppard raised a hand that still trembled with a mix of shock and adrenalin, and rubbed it through the soaked mess of unruly black hair. Ronon bit down on a groan of need as the fading adrenalin spiked tickling vibrations along the surface of his skin. Those same hands had cupped Ronon’s jaw as Sheppard breathed air into his mouth and now the feel of the other man’s touch was seared forever into his soul’s memory, like a tribal brand pressed into scorched flesh. 

“You okay?” Sheppard asked with a hint of concern as he shifted his P90 to hide his crotch, turned his now functioning eyes to Ronon and gave him the same level of in-depth scrutiny he’d paid the jutting wall of rock in front of them.  
“Yeah,” he growled in a voice deep with poorly disguised longing and caught a glimpse of the blush that flooded the Colonel’s cheeks before he ducked his head.

Ronon refused to foster even the possibility of hope as he watched a flustered Sheppard rub the back of his neck and focus his full attention on stubbing the toe of his boot against a pearl white pebble half buried in the hard packed sand.  
“We should find somewhere to hole up till Lorne arrives,” Sheppard said with a full body cold-induced shudder before returning his eyes to the sharp flat edge of the cliff’s crest. “Think there are caves?”

“Only one way to know,” Ronon threw back over his shoulder as he pulled his gun, took point and headed along the narrow span that separated the rampaging river from the cobalt and ebony streaked cliffs.

The sun was rapidly sinking behind them, lengthening the shadows to thick stripes of intense black and all-encompassing blankets of solid darkness that the P90’s scope light fought valiantly to penetrate. Sheppard was shaking violently, his teeth chattering loud enough to bring any half competent tracker straight to them; Ronon doubted they were still being hunted since they were several miles north of their original position but it was stupid to take chances. If McKay was correct, and unfortunately Ronon had no reason to assume that he wasn’t, they were smack in the middle of this planet’s winter which meant the temperature would drop to near freezing long before the seven-hour night cycle ended. He thought longingly of the six extra power bars stashed in his lost coat and sighed inwardly; the two spares Sheppard carried were all they had. Sheppard stumbled and cursed under his breath as the torch light waved erratically before resettling on the rock two yards ahead of Ronon.

‘They had to find shelter right the fuck now.’ 

∞ 

It took longer than his strung-out nerves appreciated to find a small ice-cream scoop of a cave that recessed four feet before doubling back on itself to create a low-ceilinged three-walled alcove.

‘Defensible and easy to heat,’ Ronon thought as he ducked low and entered.

“Th-is’ll w-work,” John said on a relieved stutter as he trained the small halo of light in an all-encompassing circle, before shrugging out of his vest and ripping open its velcroed pockets. “See any w-wood? We’ve gotta g-get w-warm.”

With a grunt Ronon headed back to the cave mouth and tried not to imagine his tongue sliding over the slither of lightly tanned hip that Sheppard had exposed as he shrugged out of his vest. He could think of another way for them to get warm and it was a whole lot more fun than sitting around a half-assed fire that only heated one side of you at a time.

∞ 

He strode back into the cave with an armload of sticks, branches and logs and followed the faint glow of artificial light to the rock alcove. Sheppard had finished inventorying their supplies and Ronon eyed the two red foil-wrapped powerbars with resigned interest. He’d rather hunt for them but the short time before Lorne arrived didn’t justify the effort. The unpronounceable bunch of chemicals and numbers would sustain them, but they wouldn’t sate their hunger. Ronon’s hunger was an increasingly tangible entity that burned in a protective glow around his heart; it ran down his spine like liquid fire, seeped low into his belly and kept him painfully, eagerly hard. 

His gaze followed the shakily confident movements of his CO’s hands as Sheppard stacked a wooden pyramid in the centre of a wobbly stone circle. He watched as a long thumb gave a practised flick against the small silver lighter and a blue haloed lick of light materialised to seductively coax the smoking tinder into fledgling flames. Sheppard allowed them to grow into a heartening blaze before he added a couple of larger logs to keep the fire at a slow heat-building burn. 

Ronon shivered as the fire gradually replaced the chilled air with lifesaving warmth that brushed the smooth golden skin of his bare arms in a soothing caress. Sheppard had shifted back from his knees into his familiar crouch and stretched his palms to warm them. Ronon couldn’t breathe; everything about his CO was beautiful but with the hazel of his black-lashed eyes backlit with the fire’s reflection, and its golden light playing on the curves and planes of his face, Sheppard was stunning. 

John couldn’t breathe; he knew Ronon had been watching him but what he hadn’t figured out was whether it was his hands or his neck that held the Satedan’s interest more. Ronon leaned against the wall, ankles and arms crossed, head bowed slightly in the vertically challenged space as his kind eyes stared into the hypnotising flames between each lingering glance at John. Ronon was beautiful; his full lips, large long-fingered hands, broad shoulders and long limbs all made and honed for survival.

‘And sex,’ John thought as he surreptitiously dragged his hungry gaze down those edible flanks and groaned inwardly at the large bulge, tightly restrained by the stretch of still-damp brown leather, and had to spread his knees to give himself more room. ‘Jesus!’

He brushed his right palm over the double straps of his thigh holster to cover the movement that’d thankfully shifted the stitching off the sensitive head of his painfully rigid cock. The first snap of his holster’s clip brought with it a sound unlike any he’d ever heard; every muscle in his body stilled while his ears searched the warming silence for threats. When nothing happened John moved onto the next clip and immediately zeroed in on the source of the repeated sound. John, for once, ignored the frantic warnings of his higher brain functions uttered a groan of his own and lifted his eyes to the scorching gaze of one seriously amped up Ronon. 

John still trembled but he was no longer cold. Fire coursed in his veins and scorched the surface of his skin; it sent shocks of jerky pleasure to his fingertips and hardened his nipples to painfully peaked nubs that craved the friction only clever fingers over wet clingy black cotton could provide.

‘So screwed,’ he thought as chocolate brown eyes, overflowing with ferocious want, held him a willing captive.

He swallowed hard at the deep predatory growl in his friend’s voice as Ronon whispered, “take off your shirt.”

∞

Nothing moved; not Ronon’s heart, not the gradually warming air of their private sanctuary, not the crouched form of the dark-haired man whom Ronon would give anything for. He knew the life they led was dangerous and he had no illusions it wouldn’t end in gunfire and bloodshed, with the sound Sheppard’s voice in his ears when his vision faded to black forever. Ronon figured they’d nearly lost each other back there and he wasn’t prepared to let it happen again; at least not without Sheppard knowing how he felt about him.

Sheppard’s hands lacked their usual grace as he tugged at the back of his collar. The wet black cotton resisted and seemed to suck tighter to the narrow waist and pale lean lines of his CO’s back. Ronon understood the shirt’s reluctance; he couldn’t imagine ever being able to stop touching, stop breathing in Sheppard’s scent, stop kissing th-

He yanked his own shirt over his head, swallowed the half step between them and dropped to his knees behind Sheppard. Ronon felt Sheppard jerk in surprise as his large hands splayed to curve around naked flanks, grazed lightly up the cool skin to the resistant fabric and broke the suction with his fingertips. The shirt was gone in the space between one stuttered breath and the next and Sheppard was leaning back, moulding his body into Ronon’s; thighs sliding home, ass grinding wantonly, torso sighing against taut abs and broad chest, neck arching into the curved join of shoulder and neck. He couldn’t believe it. Sheppard was yielding to him, offering all that he was and trusting that Ronon would know what to do with it.

“John?”

He’d uttered the name on a groan of pleasure that had Sheppard grinding down into his lap as it escaped his parted lips and brushed the delicate shell of a pointy-tipped ear.

‘And fuck,’ just the taste of it on his lips had him fighting not to come. 

John practically quivered in the strong arms that held him safe. ‘God, how long had he wanted to hear his name filling Ronon’s mouth?’

The sound of it thrummed in his blood and made him dizzy with need. John shifted; felt Ronon’s answering thrust and turned his head into the temptation of the other man’s jaw.

“Please,” he murmured between each press-and-hold kiss as he worked his way to the panting heat of Ronon’s open waiting mouth. “Please.”

John swallowed back the embarrassment his pleading brought out in him, he’d never been good at asking for what he wanted; but he wanted Ronon, wanted him bad.

Ronon had waited so long and the whispered begging and gentle, teasing kisses along his jaw were driving him mad. He wanted to throw John on his belly and drive more pleas from those kissable lips with every, single, balls-deep thrust of his desperate cock into that luscious ass. Instead he slaked one splayed hand down the tight planes of John’s belly and pressed down hard on the straining column of flesh in his CO’s pants. John twisted in Ronon’s arms, thrusting helplessly as he groaned into Ronon’s mouth.

“Let me warm you?” Ronon asked huskily as he panted for breath and his free hand tweaked a hard nipple. 

John writhed in Ronon’s arms, unable to choose between thrusting into the unrelenting pressure on his dick and pulling against the teasing torture being squeezed into his supersensitive nipple. Since day one Ronon had meant light and strength and heat to John and now that he had all those things surrounding him, he couldn’t believe he’d survived this long without them.

“So cold without you.”

It was a confession of sorts and John was so full of hope it made him light-headed. He’d never given himself this much leash before, never allowed himself to just take what was offered, what he wanted, without thought of the consequences.

‘Oh god!’ Those lips tasted amazingly soft and warm and firm as Ronon kissed with as much shaky need and heat as John had imagined him doing.

Their tongues dipped and explored, sliding and sucking and there wasn’t anything that John could feel that wasn’t Ronon; not the steadily increasing heat from the fire, nor the chill in the night. Then as suddenly as it had started Ronon’s mouth was gone, taking all the heat John had absorbed with it and leaving him with a sickening sense of dread that left him colder than he’d ever remembered being.

‘He was falling, drowning in a moist heat that fuelled his hunger instead of satiating it. He needed air, air was everything.’ Ronon violently tore his lips from the sweet heat of John’s mouth.

He felt sickeningly like he had in the river earlier; cold and alone. He tried to breathe and the action brushed his chest against John’s back, the opposite of how John had saved him in the river. John was in his arms now and they were safe. 

Ronon braved a glance at John and found himself snared in the gaze of the intelligent hazel eyes of his CO. John dug his fingers into the hollow at the base of his skull and Ronon felt himself being pulled closer; felt his head lowered to rest against John’s. It was a quiet reassuring gesture that calmed his racing heart and reignited the fire in his blood; heat flushed his skin as John tilted up so their mouths were but a hairsbreadth apart.

“Ronon?”

It was a breathy sigh that couldn’t possibly be heard outside the intimate space between them but it was enough.

“Yeah,” Ronon growled into the inviting cavern of John’s warm wet mouth as his free hand slid down to John’s waist.

He wanted John naked. He wanted him naked right the fuck now! And the first thing to go would be that damn belt; the standard issue strip of black and silver that rode John’s slim hips like a lover and had driven Ronon to distraction from the moment he’d come to Atlantis. 

∞

John could sense the bucket load of building tension in Ronon as those long fingers worked without success to get his BDU’s open.

‘So Ronon didn’t make a habit of undressing members of the US military then.’ John suppressed the startling relief-filled shudder the thought had caused and melted further into Ronon's chest as soothing warmth wrapped itself protectively around his heart.

“I’ve got it,” he whispered and moved his hands smoothly down the sensitive planes of his torso till they rested over those of his lover.

“Open them or I will rip them from you.”

He shuddered and couldn’t help the hiss that escaped as his cock met cooler air when, with practised skill, he slid both BDU’s and boxers down to his ankles.

“Shit! Boots!” He squawked disbelievingly; there was no fucking way his brain was up to commanding the complicated mission that unlacing them would be!

“Leave them,” Ronon growled fiercely against John’s arched and vulnerable neck and wrapped a fist possessively around straining flesh.

His knees fell open, surrendering as his hips started thrusting into that delicious squeezing grip.

“Fuck!” Ronon worked him from base to head, a thumb over his leaking slit and from head to base; over and over with a steadily increasing pace that John was certain would have him coming his brains out in about 2.3 seconds. “So good.”

“Feel better in a bit,” Ronon almost chuckled against his left ear and suckled on the lobe as his hand abandoned John’s nipple, slid down his flank, palmed his ass and started tugging at the laces over his own crotch.

John swallowed as his brain short-circuited; the thought of Ronon sliding his cock inside him was…he licked his lips and swallowed again.

“Hurry!” he ordered and felt the sliding fist as it gripped the base of his cock with harsh purpose. “Hold it!”

And yeah, being ordered around while the smooth velvet and massive fullness of Ronon’s bare cock slid the length of his crack, he liked that; but resisting the urge to come when the head caught teasingly at his hole with every slow thrust of Ronon’s hips was like fighting a fully-fed Wraith hand to hand.

‘Wraith!’ he thought with relief and latched onto the image as he opened his mouth to the touch of fingertips smoothing the curve of his bottom lip.

Ronon nearly choked on his tongue when the long shaft of his more than ready cock slid for the first time up John’s crack. It was hot and tight and he could feel both the little pulses when John tried to squeeze him and the faint dragging scrape when the underside of the head caught in the indent of that eager little hole. The entrance so small in comparison to the pleasure it offered. 

He was moaning, he couldn’t seem to stop. The feel of John thrusting into Ronon’s own fist was something he’d dreamt of so often he’d lost count; and it was even better than…anything. The thought of that solid column of hot hard flesh sliding relentlessly inside him, filling him, spreading him, the feel of John gripping his hips hard enough to bruise and fucking him; Ronon’s eyes fluttered closed on another moan and squeezed John’s cock tighter. John was losing it fast, if his erratic thrusts up into Ronon’s fist and back into Ronon’s lap were anything to go by. Actually, he decided as John ground back into his lap and Ronon rasped his fingertips along John’s lips before pushing two deep into his mouth, Ronon was going to be the one doing the fucking. This first time anyway. 

He could feel the moist slick walls of John’s mouth, the softness of those sinful lips circling the base of his fingers and the playful suction as John stroked his tongue wetly around and between them. It was amazingly good and having his mouth full was pushing John even closer to the edge. Ronon yanked them free with an obscene pop that did nothing to slow his own climb and circled John’s delicate pink hole before pushing them steadily in. “Fuck!”

“Ronon!” John was pushing onto him, urgently silently asking for more and Ronon gave it to him, on a shared moan, right to the last knuckles.

It had been more than a while and the harsh burn of the invasive friction was fucking amazing. John turned his head, searching for the welcoming heat of his lover’s mouth. The younger man was so close he was out of focus but then his mouth was there, drawing what was left of John into the only place he ever wanted to be. Ronon was both filling and emptying him; taking all he willingly gave and then some, only to replace it with everything that was Ronon. It was intense and scary as hell. John broke out of their kiss on a gasp of air when he realised there was nothing he wanted more than to hold onto that feeling. Ronon was watching him, reading him with brown eyes blown black with need as he continued to stretch and ready him with clever scissoring twists.

‘Oh god, he wanted Ronon inside him and he wanted him now!’

“Please,” he stuttered as a fingertip hit the spot and made his eyes roll back in his head.

“Don’t want to hurt you.”

He heard the words, appreciated the sentiment behind them, but it still took a moment for their meaning to sink into his sex-drugged brain. John looked at Ronon and gave him his crooked smirk that didn’t distract from the heat painting the curve of his cheeks. “Top pocket.”

It was the shock of the comparatively freezing air that assaulted his cock when Ronon let go to retrieve the lube he’d stashed just in case, that made John think he could do this without the product’s help. Ronon’s fist had been akin to Heaven and his cock jerked against his taut belly in indignant protest at the loss.

“You want me, John?” Ronon’s deep voice was just as wrecked as his own.

“Yeah,” John growled and lunged for that mouth again, sucking and biting on those full lips, “so much.”

He groaned long and breathy against the slick burning stretch that was Ronon’s monster of a cock breaching his hole.

‘God damn, he was massive!’ John hissed through the agonisingly slow yet insistent slide that was Ronon taking possession of his body. He felt so full, fuller than he’d ever been; every nerve ending sparked fire, his knees fell further apart, ass shifting accommodatingly in Ronon’s palms.

‘Tightsotightsofuckingtight!’ John’s walls were stretched around him, so fucking tight and snug that they couldn’t squeeze more than gentle flutterings along his entire length. ‘A lifetime of this sweet torture would never be enough.’

“You look so hot on my cock, John,” he rasped as he bit down on a pointy-tipped ear.

Watching his CO writhe in pleasure on Ronon’s cock forced the younger man’s hips forward before he thought John was ready but the dark-haired man in his arms shoved back in a silent signal for more.

“Do it!” John barked and, like the exceptional second he was, Ronon obeyed, threw his hips up and shoved his cock as deep as it would go.

John was fisting himself, tighter and harder with a twist over the crown. He wasn’t lasting much longer, in fact he was surprised he hadn’t come the second Ronon had first grabbed hold. The juicy slurp of each everything-but-the-head withdrawal and ass-slapping-balls-deep advance raced John towards the tantalisingly elusive climax he was craving like a drug. The feeling of Ronon joining them, shoving deep over and over and over, his pace increasing until John was a shuddering moaning mess, was more than he could handle. He could feel it building, striking his spine, tightening his balls and licking up his cock. ‘Jesus!’

“RONON!”

Ronon growled as John’s body both froze rigid and pulsed hungrily around him. He slowed his rhythm but never stilled completely, settling John’s ass into his hips, burying deep before smoothing his hands along the spread thighs, up sweaty panting flanks, sliding over a come-spattered chest and stopped to tweak at budded nipples.

John arched and twisted into the sensation, open mouth searching and finding Ronon’s, sucking on his tongue and drawing him closer still. But when John gave an innocent little lick to the corner of his mouth and murmured Ronon’s name with such intimate longing he couldn’t hold back any longer. He thrust fast and deep; once, twice, wrenched John’s hips down to seal them tight together, drove ininin and bellowed as he came; filling John and marking him as his own.

‘John. It was the name of his CO, his team leader, his friend, and now his lover.’

Fine tremors shivered his muscles and an occasional jerk tightened his arms around the waist of the laxed out man he held close. Ronon prayed to whoever was listening that he hadn’t fucked it all up because if he had, then he had nothing; home, the will to fight, courage, team, hope, strength, friendship and maybe even love were all intertwined with this man. A man whose very aura suggested someone uncomfortable with intimacy. 

“John?” Ronon was softening and he reluctantly shifted his hips to separate them.

“No,” John whispered as he nuzzled Ronon’s neck sleepily and closed a palm over the back of Ronon’s hand, “not yet.”

“Yeah, ok,” he agreed and shifted them both until he could stretch his legs out and lean his back against the cave wall.

Their position reminded Ronon again of their trip downriver and how John had held Ronon tight against him, keeping him safe. Ronon tightened his grip on his lover’s waist, leaned into John’s prickly cheek and let his eyelids flutter closed, “not yet.”

∞

‘No!’ his mind screamed as he fought to hold his breath, fought to break the hold on his arms, fought the hold on the back of his neck.

He felt fiery numbness at each point of contact; their grips so strong he knew he’d still feel their weight long after today was over……….

Taunting laughter filtered down to him, swirled around him like the long tresses of his shoulder-length hair that twisted and tangled with the icy river and the leaching fear. He held his breath. He had been practising, a little longer each time when he forced himself under the surface of his evening bath. Training himself against the panic and the terror that wanted to force his mouth open……… 

He was being hauled back; rough hands tightened their grip down his arms as if they feared his puny strength. He scoffed as his hair plastered itself to his face and hindered his ability to steal a full breath before they shoved him under again……...

They never spoke, never told him why they had made their friend’s youngest brother their sport. He sensed their boredom this day, sensed their malicious intent. He knew it to be useless and yet he struggled, he knew survival depended on conserving his precious air and yet he twisted in their grip. He drummed his booted feet against the hard packed pebbly sand and shook his head, to loosen the now double grip on the back of his neck. He tried to arch up only to feel a boot slam into his spine, each ridge of SATC standard issue tread a painful reminder that he was nothing; an insect powerless to win against its fate……... 

And there it was; an idea that would end things one way or the other. It was a tiny spark, so intense in its will to survive or go down fighting, ignited deep inside him. He stilled his body mid-thrash, forced himself limp and permitted the knee-deep water to take his full weight; to cradle him as his mother had done when he was an innocent babe-in-arms. He waited with bursting lungs for the crucial moment; the moment when they thought him dead and would release him in disgust……..

He could hear the shock in their mumbling above him. When would they leave so he could breathe, so he could run, so he could hide and come up with a plan? They were not leaving. They had hold of him again, were hoisting his limp body between the four of them. He fought to stay heavy and ‘dead’ until the moment he realised their intent…….. 

He was flying, barely long enough for the scream to leave his throat, yet long enough for their laughter to fill his ears. The river snatched him down, dragged at his scrawny body, tangled him in a thousand icy cloying hands as it tossed and swept him away. Water splashed in his face and he panicked as he coughed and swallowed more water than air. It was hard to breathe when his lungs were locked fast. He flailed his arms and legs which might have worked if he had known what to do; if he had known how to swim……..

A sharp snap heralded white hot pain in his arm and he released his remaining air on a high-pitched scream that echoed back, in the syllables of his name shouted at him from far away, before everything went black…….

“Ronon!”

Hands gripped his biceps, the fingers bit deep but Ronon ripped himself free. He was defenceless no longer and he would fight to his last breath to survive………

“Ronon!”

‘John? What was he doing here?’…….

Ronon woke with a startled sense of having slept like the dead for way too long.

“Easy, buddy.” John was speaking in a soft drawl that soothed the terror in his mind and eased the jump in his muscles to a light surface tremor.

He was still in the cave and John was here but he still couldn’t move his arms.

“Off!” he growled but John was already ripping back the silver survival blanket that was tucked under his shoulder and exposing his bare chest and arms.

The moment his arms were free Ronon yanked the other man over his balance point and John sprawled with an ooof against him.

“Hey, s’kay,” John murmured lightly into warm skin and pressed his hand firmly over Ronon’s heart; an anchor in the raging storm of remembered panic, “dream, just a dream.”

“John?” He could feel the hard shapes of John’s tags carving into a rib; they were a symbol of everything that John was and they were branding him, leaving John’s mark on Ronon’s body and he relished the feeling.

“Yeah, it’s me,” John answered softly as his weapon-roughened fingers stroked the small of Ronon’s back with barely-there swirls that whispered I’m here.

He sighed with deep relief as he raised his left hand to cover the one on his chest and tightened his right across his lover’s back. 

He didn’t know how long he stayed like that, with John as his blanket, before the man in his arms shifted onto his knees and leaned in to kiss him. Everything between them was there in the lightest grazing brush of soft lips and rasp of stubble and beard. Reassurance, strength, courage and understanding were all there, blended with a scorching need and something more that Ronon couldn’t define; but it made him lean in as John pulled back.

John’s gold-flecked hazel eyes sparked with life and Ronon let out the breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. They were ok and John wanted this too, whatever this was, but first they had to get home and that meant being ready to move when Lorne showed up.

“John?” He licked his lips as he watched those eyes widen in pleasure at the still-new sound of his name in Ronon’s mouth. “Come here.”

Ronon saw the battle John fought with himself and he saw the moment it was lost. He tangled his fingers in soft black hair, stroked his thumb over the curve of John’s cheek and watched John melt into the touch, before he lost himself in the inviting perfection that was his CO’s warm and willing mouth.

∞

They were fully dressed and sitting on opposite sides - because John couldn’t remember how to be near Ronon without touching him - of their dwindling fire and chewing ravenously at their power bars when Lorne’s shadow darkened the entrance’s pale light. 

The scraping echo of six sets of boot steps was like a sold out stadium rock concert in the suddenly claustrophobic cave and John had to resist the urge to cover his ears.

“Someone call for a cab, sir?” Lorne asked innocently enough.

‘And there it is,’ John thought behind his façade of amused eyes and crooked smirk as he got to his feet in one smooth motion.

“It’s about time, Major, the fat lady did her encore an hour ago.”

“Sorry sir, only parking was five miles south west of here and it took a while to zero in on your position,” Lorne explained with a vague eye roll toward McKay, who’d made it into the alcove section of the cave and was focused on the tiny screen of his handheld scanner.

“Ah, yes, place the blame squarely on the brilliant physicist for a change. I didn’t realise I was responsible for locating wayward colonels and runaway cavemen; I’ll be sure to add that to my extensive job description when we return to Atlantis.” Rodney shared half a raised eyebrow between the three silently amused men. “You may have heard of it? High-maintenance, ten-thousand-year-old floating city, sulks when her golden boy wanders off…”

John stopped listening and flicked his eyes from Ronon - he had to get that under control, they were back with the team, his team and he was their leader Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard and Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard didn’t stare at John’s Ronon like he was a prime rib eye steak – to Lorne in understanding; McKay was team, was family and listening to him expound on his brilliance meant they were home.

“Time to go, Major.” John breathed a deep resigned sigh that fooled no one, since his eyes were glazed with supressed laughter. “I’m sure Doc’s eager to get his hands on us before breakfast.”

“Yes sir, are you up for it, sir?”

John busied his hands with clipping his P90 to his vest before he answered his XO. ‘He would not look at Ronon, he just wouldn’t.’

“You saying I can’t keep up Major?” John asked with an arched brow and a tilt of his head.

“No sir, but if you or Ronon are injured, there’s time to take care of it here.”

“We’re good Lorne, move out” John nodded toward where Teyla covered the entrance.

“Yes, sir.”

“Hey, McKay, get a sample of that river.”

“Why would I want to do that?” McKay asked without looking up.

“Because yesterday I was blind and today I’m not.” John blazed a grin both at McKay’s impersonation of a dead fish and the surge of relief that jello’d his knees and warmed every cell in his body.

“Right,” McKay swallowed audibly, “I’ll get a sample of that river, could prove useful in the future.”

“Yeah, you do that, McKay” Lorne snarked as he stepped around the stunned physicist on his way to take up point.

John felt Ronon give his shoulder a lingering slap and closed his eyes against the shiver of pleasure that ran down his spine at the touch. So much was infused in the simple gesture he’d felt countless times on countless missions, but the message was still the same; John would lead and Ronon would have his back.

∞

They’d been separated, each getting his own team of medical personnel for the standard end-of-mission workup. John had known it was coming and had spent the last agonising hour with his senses on full alert; but it wasn’t until he was slipping back into yesterday’s black tee and buckling his belt that Beckett cleared his throat and whispered, “Are you alright lad?”

“Yeah, Doc, could murder some breakfast, but other than tha-” John paused mid reach for his vest and eyeballed Carson warily.

“Did you…did he….was it consensual?”

The tension in his shoulders stood down as John realised what Carson was asking and he ducked his head to hide the sudden heat blazing his cheeks. “Yeah, it was.”

With a nod Carson placed his tablet on the exam bed and turned to the glass-doored supply cabinet. “You’ll need to replace your vest supplies, Colonel Sheppard.”

“But I didn’t use anyth-” John swallowed hard when Beckett dropped the supplies into his palm. “Thanks Doc.”

“Not at all, Colonel, not at all.” Carson’s nervous reply was pitched for everyone to hear but as John discreetly pocketed the lube and condoms he caught Beckett’s harsh whisper, “Tell him to see me and only me.”

John looked three beds over to where Ronon sat stoically while a nurse held a stethoscope in place under the white scrub top, then dragged his gaze back to the Scotsman at his side. “Thanks, Carson.”

“Sure lad, now off w’ ye, I’ve got real patients to attend to.”

John couldn’t get out of the infirmary fast enough but if he’d noticed the smooth golden skin of Ronon’s back where the nurse had hiked the shirt out of her way, well, that was his secret. 

∞

He didn’t see Ronon again until 2300; he was twenty yards from Ronon’s door when Atlantis automatically opened it and allowed the echo of a hoarse cry to escape into the quiet corridor. John pulled his sidearm and ran, his throat closed against an avalanche of possible horrors as his long legs propelled him forward.

The moment his feet crossed the threshold Atlantis locked him in and, after clearing the room of any immediate threats, John followed the sound of running water into Ronon’s bathroom. The temperature change from artificially perfect to damp and cool made John shiver but it was nothing compared to the fucking hot sight of a naked Ronon leaning against the shower wall. When John saw blood trickling from Ronon’s fist where it was wedged in a broken tile, he slid his 9mm on the counter and strode into the shower, boots and all.

“Let me,” he murmured around the worried lump in his throat as he reached for and cradled the injured hand in his own.

John stroked the large palm of Ronon’s hand, soothing gently until the long fingers unfurled and he could check for damage. There was none beyond the grazed knuckles and John allowed the breath he’d been holding tight in his chest to escape in a hiss.

“I want to forget,” Ronon croaked and John looked up into tortured brown eyes with his own startled green ones; but before the barely formed question could leave his pursed lips Ronon murmured pleadingly, “help me forget.”

A fist clenched around John’s heart, stilling it mid beat in his chest. He’d never seen Ronon so beaten, so lacking in calm and the begging in the younger man’s voice was something John never wanted to hear again. 

John didn’t answer with words; instead he ignored the fountain of icy needles that soaked him from hair to boots, curved his palm around his lover’s neck and pulled until their mouths met in a gentle kiss. The cool slick of water in the corners of the Ronon’s mouth reminded John of the river, of how close things had been; so he held Ronon tight, shoved his tongue deep into Ronon’s eager mouth and tried to replace the memory of icy death with spicy richness and dizzying heat. Ronon returned the favour by filling John’s mouth with a moan so delicious and needy that he couldn’t do anything but answer it with one of his own.

Somewhere between Ronon sucking on his tongue and big hands yanking his hips in tight, John thought HOT and the water raining down on them felt instantly warmer.

‘Mind control was a hellova turn on,’ he thought and smirked against Ronon’s kiss-swollen lips.

“So hot!” Ronon groaned on a pleasure-soaked breath behind John’s ear, “make it hotter.”

John didn’t know if he could handle hotter; his nipples tugged out from his chest like they were attached to taut strings and his muscles felt like over-stretched toffee. Fire slaked across the surface of his skin and power thrummed in his veins as his city obeyed him once again and showered them in glorious heat. He couldn’t remember ever being this fired up or this desperate to have his cock somewhere tight and hot, that with each full depth thrust he would hear husky moans falling from his lover’s lips.

“Want you,” John growled and shoved Ronon against the wall; forced a brutal crush of a kiss into Ronon’s succulent lips then ripped open his BDU’s with an impatient hand.

“Fuck me!” Ronon begged against the arched curve of John’s exposed neck, “want you so much.”

“Fuck, Ronon!” he cursed, because, hell yeah, that was hot!

Ronon yielded. He melted into the fierceness of his team leader’s demanding kiss and he let John shove him round so his chest was pressed into the cubicle’s freezing tiles. He pushed back when John slid three slick fingers past the tight ring of his eager hole and he tried to grip them as they retreated teasingly. It had been so long and having the hard hot length of John’s cock buried deep in his ass was the only thing Ronon could think of that would kill his fear.

“Remember this,” John murmured into the nape of his neck as his cock breached Ronon’s body; claiming him just as Ronon had claimed John.

With the first long, full thrust that was John sliding deep inside him, Ronon knew that he would always remember; he would remember all their moments past and present and all their shared moments still to come. Ronon would remember the soft sucking on his neck, the sharp bite of strong fingers on his hips, and the way the sliding drag of John’s cock over his sweet spot pushed him over the edge. He would remember it was John’s name he’d yelled on a hoarse cry, as he jerked untouched and spilled hot come over both himself and the shower’s pale blue tiles. He would remember, as his lover filled him with liquid heat, that it was John’s strength pressed against his back that had kept him safe when he was too weak to do it himself. 

It’d made John uncomfortable when Ronon had dried him with such gentle care, like he was something to be treasured and protected, as the insistent soft rub of the white towel over every inch of his body melted the last of his carefully constructed defences.

‘He could do this, he could have this; he could let someone in if that someone was Ronon.’ With that freeing thought, John gave up the fight he hadn’t wanted to win and allowed himself to drown in the seductive intimacy of Ronon’s reassuring whispers and coaxing kisses. 

∞

John couldn’t help thinking they were back where they’d started as they lay naked on Ronon’s big bed – it had to be two roped together – with the comforting weight of milk chocolate fur blanketing them to their waists. He lay pressed tight into Ronon’s long lean side, one thigh wedged between both of Ronon’s and his head pillowed in the crook of a strong shoulder. With a thought he lowered the lights to an almost candlelight glow that made the edible skin of Ronon’s arms and torso gleam like polished honey. He felt Ronon’s breath ruffling the fluffy just-washed tuffs of his unmanageable hair, he felt the steady thud of Ronon’s generous heart as it beat in time with his own and he felt the soothing patterns long fingers scribed into the small of his back as they lulled him towards sleep. John had hoped if he waited, offered a place where Ronon felt comfortable, then he’d talk; but it wasn’t until he was nearly under that John felt the deep rumble of Ronon’s voice against his cheek.

“I was eleven…Aleck’s unit brothers numbered four…Aleck was their commander and had extra lessons separate from his team….they were bored…I was their sport…their plaything…I was afraid…they held me under…I was…w-wea-k…” His voice choked away into silence.

“Ronon?”

He tried to answer but his throat was locked tight, the remembered laughter slowly choking him as he drowned in memories he’d thought long forgotten. 

John was there, giving him something to hold onto, helping him float through the icy waters of long-held fear and into the welcoming heat of something that warmed him to the depths of himself; something strong and enduring. His dark-haired lover rested his head on his hand and looked down at him with the most gorgeous eyes Ronon had ever seen.

“Remember us,” John whispered as he kept Ronon mesmerized in his hazel/gold gaze and slowly leaned down.

Ronon had expected a gentle slightly slick brush over his eager lips but John’s kiss was all consuming; a delving playful tongue, clashing biting teeth, seductive lips and the rasp of stubble on his skin that left Ronon gasping; his head filled with nothing but the scent and taste and feel of John.

And, yeah, Ronon would remember them, till his very last breath.

**Author's Note:**

> "Breathe" was inspired by the lyrics of “Hanging by a Moment” – Lifehouse  
> Youtube link to the acoustic version that inspired this fic with it's raw openness and lyrics that spoke to me of John/Ronon.  
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnXHUZLmoBo&feature=player_detailpage


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